The Greatest Love of All
A few years back this same person used to borrow Nintendo rom cartridges from me. I'd laugh thinking old people also had time for playing. He'll play with his youngest son till their thumbs would ache. He's proven to me a few times that he's a man of few words. He doesn't talk long and he just say what he thinks. That's particularly rude for me, though.
Gone crazy he could be but that does not remove my respect to a man who once saved his eldest son's life in no regards to the condition that he could be paying it for his own. So many years back when I was still too young for old talks, this person came home from work only to be faced with the screams of his neighbors that his son has fallen down a 15-foot deep well near their house. Exhausted by the day's work yet his spirit was forced to act in the swiftness of time, he jumped into the well. Perhaps he overheard from his neighbors that his son had been floating down under for too long a period of time that he never thought of losing another second. His jump was perfect, his reflexes were keen and he hugged his son from down under perhaps reaching for a ray of life from his face. He was crying maybe yet his tears were submerged with the freezing water from the well. Perhaps he was swearing on why his neighbors never looked for a rope or tie somethign down upon which his son can grasp into. They were both well afterwards. Seemingly well.
A couple of years passed and he changed. Perhaps the shock? Or maybe the revelation that nobody really cares? He's got to learn from it and he did.
Somehow he's born under a bad sign and just for another year or two later he lost his youngest son. The darkest thought of which is water. I'm not superstitious and I just don't want to subscribe by it but in the most unpleasant of things, his youngest son died by drowning in a pit filled with rainwater! I am no father but I would want to tell from his eyes that night we visited the wake that he was swearing and raising one hand unto God, screaming in his darkest thoughts, "Why? Why? Why?". But no - he did not. He looked at me and softly spoke in a manner he I rarely hear him, "God has His plans for my little Magie. He's supposed to have done his part." I left a sigh out.
Lately, he's been seen walking around in barenaked clothings with scars all over his body and yet he care no more. Maybe he was thinking everyone doesn't care really. His wife left to live with his eldest son away seeing and believing his husband to be out of his mind. He lived alone afterwards.
I couldn't think of a better title for this post than to put it that way - a father loves his son with everything in him he wills to give. Perhaps this could be the greatest love?
I couldn't say. I had to be in the position anyway.
arzakem posted at 7:55:00 PM
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
New Flash Clock design
For the codes, please see my previous post.
Type 2 Red and Type 2 Blue
Here are my links:
Type 2 Red:
http://my.opera.com/arzakem/homes/files/2red.swfType 2 Blue:
http://my.opera.com/arzakem/homes/files/2blue.swfPlease download my flash files and upload it on your own server because at any time I might be removing it when I ran out of space.
arzakem posted at 10:24:00 PM
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Thursday, September 22, 2005
Get my Flash Clocks for your Blog
(See my sidebar for working clock. The following are just still images)
If you think they're cool you can put it into your site by putting the following tags on your template e.g. your sidebar or wherever. [Note that you must change the line in red with the URL of the clock you liked as given below and that you can personalize the size of the clock by changing the values in red]:
<embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
width="176" height="200"
name="clock" src="PUT-LINK-OF-CLOCK-HERE"
bgcolor="#FFFFFF" quality="high"
swLiveConnect="true" allowScriptAccess="samedomain">
</embed>
Links for each clock:
A. Red Clock
URL: http://my.opera.com/arzakem/homes/files/redc1.swf
B. Blue Clock
URL: http://my.opera.com/arzakem/homes/files/bluec1.swf
C. Purple Clock
URL: http://my.opera.com/arzakem/homes/files/purpc1.swf
I'd be adding more colors and more digital/analog types of clock soon. If you have anything to suggest however, feel free to leave a comment. :)
arzakem posted at 9:53:00 PM
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Wednesday, September 21, 2005
My Aquarium Pets
Lately I've been engrossed with my aquarium fishes. It's a great stress reliever considering that I work 12 hours and commute 32 kilometers every day. At home I have a pond and an aquarium that I put my much attention nowadays second to my PC. No more guitars and that concludes my post last July. This night I made a flash movie for my fish and I started with Arzy, my archer fish. He should have a partner but the poor thing died when I put them both in my pond. Arzy got well and he's a great shooter. Last Sunday, I was surprised when he spit-shot me while I was watching him. See my swishmax-done flash for Arzy by clicking here to download or view.
CHICO the Betta
Here's my majestic fighter. Actually I have many fighting fishes but I like Chico most. He's definitely not afraid of anything, even Oscar the Cichlid. Bettas or fighting fishes are abundant here in my place and cost very cheap. Chico had been with me for 4 months already and I made a flash of him capturing what he always do best --- floating.
See him on the sidebar or download/watch here.
arzakem posted at 9:26:00 PM
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Monday, September 19, 2005
Flash on my Blog Template
arzakem posted at 8:58:00 PM
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Saturday, September 17, 2005
Eyes Wide Shut
I recalled my hospital rush yesterday and I just couldn't get a clue either to what I witnessed - it seems that there are more nurses and doctors than patients there. We were galloping on the halls of the hospitals and we couldn't see anybody around. The wards are in 4 beds but yet only one sets of the 4's are filled.
So why surprising? The hospital we admitted my aunt is a hospital labeled as "private". Here in the Philippines and even elsewhere, you can find private hospitals that give you most of your medical requirements for a good price as opposed to public hospitals who can give you free service yet you have to buy or supply the medical requirements that the hospital cannot provide. I always visit public hospitals and to an irony of much extent, you couldn't see a hallway but a crowded corridor of beds, patients unattended and yet unadmitted, nurses rushing to patients at a ratio of 1 is to 227, and doctors turning amnesiac due to the high doctor:patient ratio of 1:800. Good heavens, I couldn't understand why the line between wealthiness and poverty be kilometers apart!
I kept asking myself how this private hospital had so much space in it when the public hospitals are very very very very crowded. Could be the system we entrusted our fate be too far-fetched when government officials keep promising to provide more and more jobs? I want to keep the faith to the aristocratic system we chose but next week we'd be facing more price hikes as the expanded VAT will be in effect for the umpth time. Maybe the public hospitals would be much more crowded next week as many more Filipinos get into deep migraines as everything gets into higher value.
Mrs. Arroyo should stop looking outwards and ponder to his people for once - it just couldn't help sacrificing your own people for the price of a deniable utopic future for the country. You just shouldn't lead with eyes wide shut.
arzakem posted at 9:13:00 AM
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Sunday, September 11, 2005
Tomorrow Strikes!
It has just been announce - tomorrow we have a "national strike day".
Jeepney drivers, operators and other concerned NGO's will be back on the streets but in opposite directions with the thousands of students, workers and employees willing to go to school or go to job yet without any means of going there. If some have their own cars and other transports yet there will be vigilant "strikers" swearing to get the streets free of movement.
I don't like strikes. Why? Because "strikes" are bad for business - that I learned in college. Let me blurt out with my personal observations...
Strike means no class tomorrow. Students get blunt for a day;
Strike means no money for drivers of passenger vehicles;
Strike means violence (always a case here so don't argue);
Strike means business is down;
Strike means discontent;
Strike means injustice;
Strike means higher transport fare and lower peso-value;
Strike means politicking;
Strike means the rich gets richer;
Strike means minus to my salary because I will be absent forcibly;
Strike means noise in the streets;
Strike means I should stay home and sleep (that's not productive);
Strike means some people are being paid (strike-maniacs!);
Strike means our country is getting close to civil disobedience;
I am sorry for the local organizations that always strike and strike and strike. I believe they are doing something for the people but sometimes it's just not that way. I just heard from the radio last night that one head of an association of jeepney operators here declared that they just wouldn't join the strike tomorrow. I remembered this association official also declared full support to another strike just about a month ago asking for a 2-peso increase in jeepney fares. The fare increase was approved and at a big 3-peso rise. Tomorrow the strike will be to put down the law that was instrumental of these fare hikes and Mr. Official will not join it because it could lower the fares again. STUPID FAT HUNGRY CORPORATE SUCKERS! I believe these people control the strikes and the price hikes.
Enough for me to dislike strikes. I just can't get to thinking how most of the Filipinos got addicted to coming out into the streets. As for me I believe I'm just a job-addicted service-manic humble employee willing to teach my students the virtue of swallowing your bone of contentment, and am not blind either.
Tomorrow I'll be on the streets for the early rush of riding the morning transports to 16 kilometers ahead where I teach. At 6 AM the strike will start and I'd be staying in school until 6 PM when the strikes are going to end. At least, when my students arrive, they wouldn't go home saying "NO CLASS, IT'S A STRIKE!"
arzakem posted at 8:36:00 PM
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Monday, September 05, 2005
No crying, will you...
Not really the "teacher's pet" but I believe she would easily take the post. Physically, she doesn't have the looks. But she has guts and that's enough masking. I've known girls when I was young and admired there beauty and later just ponder on how... and why... good-graciously did I ever fall for such a mocking face. But looks don't discern what the mind can be capable.
She's my mathematical wonder, but I think I couldn't see any DaVinci Rectangle in her. To be of gratitude for giving me less time educating her (and sometimes making her the class tutorial session), I would always give advises to her and build up whatever she's building inside. But she's got too much guts, and sometimes she will act too sarcastic. For the Filipinos, respect is very much important. I believe she has less of it. Sometimes, maybe because of too much familiarity, she would cross the thin line between being a student and being his teacher. She would talk to me with no reverence at all. Her other teachers notice it also. Kids these days, that's just what I would say, of course saving enough chastity to my students favor.
Her classmates doesn't like her attitude too. She's got that egocentric attitude that would always be unwanted by her classmates. "I can do it!", that's a casual line for her.
To that I was much concerned. I believe in character as a saving grace for the feeble-minded. But not this way. My favorite Math wonder is spinning calculations easily but she's got no good soul in her. It's time for Super-ME to do something.
And so we planned. My other students, her friends also, devised a sneakingly good plan to make her cry. That's great, I was doing it single-handedly when I was your age kids! Naah.
It's our Math class and miss Math wonder is already there on her usual seat, and oh with that sly, demonic grin.
Of course, in a split of a second, after the very first question, the whole class deafeningly acknowledge her shrill, "Sir, I know that, I can do that! Pick me!!!" Okay, okay. Then she answered on the board. Then at the count, one - two - three...
Everybody yawned and dropped their heads on their desks. Nobody made a sound. I sat on my chair and looked away saying, "That's great." Miss Math Wonder wondered for a moment. What's happening? You can't do this... then she burst into tears.
I was cruel. We were cruel and we felt it. So we said sorry to her and explained why and what our reasons were.
After much explanations, she probably learned something from her and she said sorry to everyone.
Sometimes it takes a little cruelty to foster the necessity of change. My Math wonder really learned a lesson that day, and that lesson was more than what she nimbles in numbers easily - it's a lesson worth learning for the heart. ;)
arzakem posted at 7:52:00 PM
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Sunday, September 04, 2005
Learning Intervention Materials
It's about a seminar I attended together with some colleagues. Actually, I believe I was just forced by our principal to attend. Being the youngest in the faculty really is a pain. With all the bullyings, they always work for me. The seminar, which was held in another school about 18 kilometers from us, was about the introduction of what the trainers call "Learning Intervention Materials". Not really a super-unique, stellar idea, but this is just worth a try. This so called "learning intervention materials" are actually teaching aids that are targeted basically on the most difficult parts of the lessons taken from each grading period. Before you would make such teaching aids, there are some things to identify first. The steps if you would:
#1. Identify the question from the periodical exams that got the most mistakes.
#2. Associate the basic learning objectives from the curriculum upon which that question falls.
#3. Subtask the particular objective or in other words, further break down the objective into subtasks. For example, if the objective is adding monomials, the subtasks would include grouping like terms etc.
#4. From the subtasks, create an interesting teaching aid which would be the "Learning Intervention Materials". In that case, it could be in the form of Comic books that hasten the learning, or a workshop at that.
This wasn't easy. Maybe it would have been easy for other subjects like English or Science but not in Math. Anyway, it took us some time to discuss on how to do our materials. First of all, we never had concrete exam results that time since the exams are still off schedules. Later we agreed on choosing by ourselves what topic or particular objective we should choose, not relying on exam results this time.
I chose multiplying monomials. It's not because it was easy, but because in my experience, it was really something my students in the past have gotten much confusions. After the day was over with much discussions and hoopla over the individual assignments, I went home but not after passing by a store to buy some materials that would include a clear book, glue, some color pencils, scissors, and some art paper. After arriving at home, I took some sleep (that was a 30-km trip!). After a while, I positioned myself on the computer and searched for ideas on the Net. What would I do - a comic book or a magazine? That's hard. Later that evening, after looking for some ideas, I got Marvin (the lazy robot from H2G2) and "Deep Thought" as my Math Comic Book Heroes. Yeah, they'll love it.
Ok, I admit. I believe I am one of those lucky few to have gotten a heavenly gift of drawing and sketching. I was a skillful artist from way back high school so it took me 5 hours (5 hours!!!) to make that "Learning Intervention Material".
I don't like bragging, but eventually, my work got flying stars the next day. Our seminar leaders borrowed my work for another seminar schedule on the South. "That's lovely," I smiled thinking I've got my signatures all over that comic book. Seemingly, the seminar was a success and we've had so much fun.
Really? Not really. Well, in the first place, not all teachers were as artistically inclined. Browsing through their works in the gallery, I could pinpoint some from the colorful works. Some that were just too plain boring, some that were just soo stupid, some that were just there for the sake of the Certificates we receive afterwards, and some just well done too cheap. At least they tried.
It's just not being productive after all. I mean, why does the Education Department make seminars like this? Maybe the Department was just expecting much from its teachers to be comic-editors, or publishers? I was lucky to be skillful but it took me 5 hours to do such a material. Why can't the Department just take some Master Teachers and fund a seminar like this of which the results would be published and delivered right to our classroom doorsteps. Could it be that the Department is just putting much load on us teachers by not spending on materials like these which could have been done by publishers with comic artists on the sketchpad? I believe it just wouldn't work that way.
arzakem posted at 10:52:00 PM
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Saturday, September 03, 2005
Woah!!!
[ read this on my Opera Journal ]
The Intramurals has just got over and I'm picking up pieces of confetti on the floor. Looking closer, of course, it wouldn't be confetti but cement sacks torn into bits!
Oh no, not my room again. This time the Public Works are totally bombarding my room with a smear-up campaign. But anyway, it's for my students own safety. You see my classroom is part of a 4-room edifice who seems to be a good example of how Corrupt Projects always happen in constructing Public Buildings. I could easily apply for the "2005 Search for Leaning Towers" with my classroom. This is why I am always worried. Inside the classroom, you'll easily sense that somehow the room is like inclined to the left in a few degrees. Hopelessly I just tell my students to refrain from jumping.
Seems like the cavalry has arrived. Our congressman funded for the repair (I could label it as a scaffolding! anyway thanks.) of the 4-room building. This time, they are making it right. My older co-teachers once explained how the funds for the old building got corrupted. It works like a simple subtraction to me:
Government will hire Contractor A for the job for x pesos;
Contractor A will hire Contractor B to do the job for him for the amount of x - a pesos;
Contractor B will hire Contractor C to do the job for him for x - a - b pesos;
Contractor C will hire Contractor D to do the job for him for x - a - b - c pesos;
God knows what's next.
It's a great formula for "corruptive engineering", I should say and here is the negative slope function f(x) = -x^2.
It's a bit comforting they're doing it right this time and I'm hoping so. I just don't want to get into delivering lessons and suddenly finding ourselves falling and crumbling down into debris and dusts like the WTC. For the student's sake, do your best this time!
arzakem posted at 11:19:00 AM
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Sketch Up!
Anyway, here are my creations (the first one is my Drugstore design with my logo on the side and the second one is my transparent 2-storey computer store plan).
Design 2. Arzakem's Computer Solutions
Believe me but it took me just about 5 minutes for each design. Now, how do you find them?
arzakem posted at 7:53:00 AM
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